U.S. calls Ukraine the pirate king

U.S. officials are calling Ukraine the world’s “worst abuser of intellectual property rights,” charging that Internet piracy there has gotten so bad that even government agencies are using illegal software, according to AFP. In response, U.S. trade officials said they are considering trade restrictions against Kyiv. Read More »

Picture this: A Latvian startup visualizes the future

Kazakhstan climbs up the post-Soviet IT heap

In the annual Global Information Technology Report of the World Economic Forum, Kazakhstan has outshone its Central Asian neighbors – and Russia – to rank 43 of 144 countries, EurasiaNet.org reports. Kyrgyzstan, on the other hand, ranks at the bottom of all post-Soviet nations, at 118.     Read More »

CA overlooked again as Twitter crowdsources translation

Twitter has opened up its code for translation into more than 50 languages. This is a great opportunity for users all over the world to contribute to and adopt the platform in their own language.  Yet one region, as seems to be a growing trend, seems noticeably absent. Read More »

All eyes on VK after Usmanov Mail.ru stock sale

Alisher Usmanov, Russia’s wealthiest man, sold a 7.4-percent stake in his company Mail.ru for approximately $530 million.  The 28 February move, while still leaving him still in control of Mail.ru with 58.1-percent of voting shares, has many guessing about just what he’s got planned. Read More »

Georgia places high for net freedom, but some problems remain

Georgia’s Internet is generally free from government censorship, the newly published Transparency International Georgia’s report says. Last year, there was not a single case reported of websites blockages; nor were any bloggers or other online activists questioned arrested for their online activities, as it often happens in the neighboring countries. Read More »

In Belarus, gadgets gadgets everywhere nor any freedom to tweet

Perhaps you saw the funny quote in my news feed on Facebook that read: “This country looks like a post-apocalyptic world. Everyone has got gadgets, phones, and tablets – and around you see broken roads and loads of waste”. Read More »

Facebook stonewalls Yandex’s social search app

Yandex’s social search app has been shut down, for now.  Read More »

Yandex to expand its technological horizons

Internet giant Yandex has become the first Russian company to get access to the vast databases of the influential Swiss European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN). Read More »

New evidence emerges in TeliaSonera bribery case

Swedish prosecutors have filed new documents in an investigation into claims that Scandinavian mobile operator TeliaSonera paid hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to secure an operating license in Uzbekistan, according to Radio Free Europe. Read More »

Estonia decodes IT future

The European Union launched an information technology agency in Estonia last Saturday, just months after the Baltic country announced it would begin teaching computer programming to first-graders. Read More »

The Kremlin’s 21st-century thought police

Earlier this month, Russia’s controversial new Internet blacklist law went into effect, raising serious concerns from bloggers, activists, and human rights watchers. The law, with the particularly Orwellian name “On Amendments to Federal Law On Protecting Children from Information Harmful to Their Health and Development and Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation”, officially gives Kremlin agencies the legal right for deep surveillance of its citizenry. Read More »

Piano Player

Over at TOL, we’ve been following developments rather closely of the Slovakia-born online paywall system known as Piano. This is a highly unusual story of a media-related innovation originating in our coverage region, but generating a lot of press in Western Europe and the United States (almost always, it’s the other way around). Read More »

New Yandex browser escalates Russia’s search-engine wars

Last week Russia’s leading search engine Yandex launched its own web browser in an effort to stave off attempts by search giant Google to gain market share in Russia’s increasingly lucrative Internet space. Read More »